


Rock-a-bye Baby

by Mangerine



Category: World Trigger (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Tachikawa is a Virgo you think he doesn't have anxiety?, parental stress
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-13
Updated: 2020-05-13
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:40:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24158281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mangerine/pseuds/Mangerine
Summary: Rock-a-bye baby, far out at seaWhen the tide turns, the cradle will sink,When the heart breaks, the Captain will fall,And down will come baby, cradle and all.
Relationships: Jin Yuuichi/Tachikawa Kei
Comments: 1
Kudos: 13





	Rock-a-bye Baby

**Author's Note:**

> I found this in my Notes app, dated 22 October 2018, 10:07pm. I can't say with certainty what drove me to write this, except for my enduring delight for angst. Enjoy!

The bed welcomes him back with a displeased groan.

Yuichi doesn't welcome him back at all.

"Finally got them to settle down." Tachikawa grumbles. Through sleep heavy eyes his husband is still browsing through his phone, back turned and making no move to come nearer.

Their three-month old twins are asleep; their two-year-old marriage still colicky. When Tachikawa reaches an arm out for the blanket, the night is cold enough for that slip of skin to feel like naked vulnerability. His arm stretched out to his faraway husband is a shaky act - to calm, to pull near, to grip and keep near. It's an act without purpose - his palm lands on Yuichi's elbow and the latter twitches without speaking still. The involuntary jerk would have shaken off a mosquito, but Tachikawa's hand, also a pest, remains.

The light from the phone captures Yuichi's rapt attention like Tachikawa cannot. He's not scrolling anymore.

Tachikawa's fingers know before his heart accepts. He's practiced the motion of drawing out his sword a thousand times before. His hands are waiting for a fight. His heart is sleepy. He wants his husband close. He wants the light off, and the storm he knows is coming to be postponed indefinitely.

Jin shifts, his shoulder shifts before his torso and hips follow, the sheets roll with his silhouette like a rocking wave. The bed groans.

"I'm leaving you." Jin says.

And it is Jin now; not Yuichi. His brain catching up. Their bed one half lonely and one half dissatisfied. He's hiccuped over the second stage and is now bargaining through his denial. Rather the bed a battlefield split than a bed all his and empty. His hand doesn't move from Jin's elbow.

Drowning men grasp at shores, married men stay on the shipwreck-to-be.

Jin holds his phone near. The light is white and blinding hot. The phone is likely warmer than Tachikawa. Tachikawa doesn't know what to say.

"We can work through this," he says like a code. Did he remember S.O.S in morse? Would that help now?

(... --- ...)

"You're not listening." Jin sighs like the wind. Jin turns from him again, phone clutched to his chest, under thin blankets.

Tachikawa doesn't let go. The sheets drown him.

"Give me another chance," Tachikawa bubbles in morse. Head under water.

"You weren't ever ready for this," Jin hisses, hot engines slipping into salty foams. "A chance?"

A chance? The words are steel nails. Opaque and hard. Heavy as a metric ton, the light could cast shadows with them.

"You mean like when you left for the expedition with both of them having fevers?"

Water is cold. His own blood warm. Whether he is still drawing breath is secondary to the sensation of cold brine rushing up his jaw against his blood warm lips.

“When you melted their bottles on the stove? When you left their favourite toys at the station? Lost their papers and had us searching the whole two days?"

Jin always slept silently, fingers curled like unbloomed flowers in Tachikawa's shirt. Tachikawa cannot remember the scent of his hair. When Jin kissed him before he registered how soft his lips were before how warm.

He loves Jin. He loves their children. The sand at the bottom of the ocean are softer than his mattress. Tachikawa doesn't make a sound as his body displaces powdery seabed only to have it snow down on him again, small broken shells tiling against him. His fingers are driftwood.

He'll never let go.

He never means his aggravation. He never intended his mistakes. He tried. That's what he bubbles out when the anchor descends down, a lowering whale.

"I'm leaving. I'm taking the twins."

He wakes in sweat that plasters him to the sheets. Shaking, disoriented, slick and uncomfortably warm - the nightmare spat him out some hellish womb twisting and struggling.

Through his dry tongue, bitter breath and throbbing temples. He hears from his empty bed - Yuichi laughing from the living room.

The sun is up. One bright light. Tachikawa sits with his feet on the ground and stares at the hardwood with blurry familiarity. He finds that he can stand, walking out the empty bedroom with something desperate like purpose.

He makes it to the corridor before his senses return from corrosive sleep. Feeling is fuzzy, but intuition pushes through. People are laughing. Guests. Family.

People to impress. Yuichi included. He's in his pyjamas. He's got the breath of a dead sailor.

Another chance. He drags himself to the toilet and tries again. The tin soldier was eaten by a fish. Came out filthy. One leg still missing. One fear still thrumming. The tin soldier went in the fire. Came out changed and clean. He brushes his teeth, washes the sleep out his eyes. The tin soldier with unmelted heart walks to the living room.

"Hey," he croaks. Eyes turn to him. Yuichi is staring at him.

"Sorry I slept in. Have you all eaten?" Tachikawa continues. His face is clean, his shirt is navy blue and cotton, his pants are the slacks they bought together, someone should be saying something by now.

Konami shifts first, a confused yellow leaf flipping in the wind to reveal lime green amusement. She hides a giggle behind her free hand. Their older son keeps sleeping in her other arm. Beside her Usami pinches her lips together in a badly sealed laugh and does not reply.

"I can watch the kids for a while if you guys need a break," Tachikawa continues from the door frame. His toes are in the room with some meagre stubbornness. Reiji is holding back their younger son from the pepper shaker. Karasuma is holding back laughter.

Yuichi,

Yuichi is looking at him, phone face down on the coffee table.

Yuichi is standing and walking towards him. Past him, a firm warm hand on his elbow. Yuichi is pulling him down the hall.

Yuichi is smiling all this while, pressing him into the white foam of their bed. This is the happy end of the little mermaid, the foam was her, the sea was her, the sun, the sky, the squirming twins, the smiling husband, kissing his brow,

telling him he just went to sleep fifteen minutes ago, for the first time in seventy-two hours, and maybe,

just maybe,

the stress was getting to him.

**Author's Note:**

> _"Virgo teaches Aries patience and attention to detail, the knowledge that the little things — and moments — are important too. Aries can teach their Virgo lover to take things less seriously..."_
> 
> \- astrology.com but Ashihara please release their full birth charts I know you have it.


End file.
